Actually, come to think of it, how about we actually nominate games for different categories? You can't really compare a game like terraria that has only a few people working on to a big-business title like Skyrim. And some games do deserve some honorable (or not so honorable) mentions, while not being the best game of 2011.

Also, I don't see why we announce the game of the year in december. Are we perfectly sure there won't be another surprise game published right before christmas? It's not really a competition; we don't have to be the first ones to announce a GotY.

I'd say DotA 2 has been what I have enjoyed the most, but that is still in beta so I guess it does not count.

That means it will have to be Skyrim. Despite there being so much about it that I don't like it is far more entertaining than most stuff out there in my opinion. I am a sucker for RPGs and lately few come close to TES. Don't even mention the Witcher 2, I couldn't get myself to play more than 4 hour of that game. It felt so dull, linear and... I don't know. I guess a lot of people will disagree with me, but I really don't like fighting for 5 minutes and then watch a scripted scene and then do it all again.

Portal 2 was in many ways better than Skyrim and is one of the most complete game designs I have ever witnessed, but you simply can't play it for even nearly as long as you can play Skyrim.